Re: Will Windows 7 work on my E520?

If you have Vista, it will work. You might have some hardware or software that needs to be removed or upgraded. Run the Windows Upgrade Advisor to see. Download it Here.

If you have Windows XP, the installation is a little more difficult since you must do a clean install using the Upgrade disk, so you will have to backup all your personal files and reinstall all your software. But do not remove XP or reformat before you start the install. You must prove eligibility for the upgrade by starting the Custom Install and reformat from Windows. Lots more info on this at the Win 7 site.

Re: Will Windows 7 work on my E520?

Same system, same question, but can I assume that the RAID setup referred to by Dell as "Data Protection" will survive under the radar of the Win7 upgrade? I'm guessing that the RAID setup is a BIOS construct which is not affected - true? I've broken my mouse looking for a straight answer to this on Dell's site. Thanks.

Re: Will Windows 7 work on my E520?

shreddog,

Thank you for contacting the Dell Community Forum. The RAID setup on your system should survive the Windows 7 upgrade, because the RAID itself is configured and stored in a separate utility that is outside Windows, and should be unaffected by the change in OS. You might have to install a separate RAID driver to install the OS, but since this system was made in 2006, Windows 7 most likely contains those drivers already.

Re: Will Windows 7 work on my E520?

Please help. I'm confused about upgrading to Windows 7. There are many issues that I currently have with Vista, and I'm hoping that upgrading from Vista to version 7 will resolve them.

Dell does not list the E520 as a system that can be upgdated to Windows 7! I've already purchased the Software, but I can return it if I don't open the package. Is it true that it is my risk if I purchase Windows 7, and that I'm simply expending more aggrevation, time, and money if the update fails?

Can either of you, shreddog or Chris Bu, confirm that you've successfully updated a E520 from Vista to Windows 7, even if there were a few 'gotchas' that were not deal breakers?

Re: Will Windows 7 work on my E520?

Hi,

I can confirm that I have gone from XP to Windows 7 (64 bit) on my Dell E520 without a hiccup - every single device picked up by Windows during installation, didn't have to search for a single driver myself. Very impressed with how smoothly it went.

Re: Will Windows 7 work on my E520?

I backed up all the files on the C: drive to a new 250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 IDE drive housed in a Galaxy Metal Gear Box USB2/Firewire external enclosure. I used the USB2 interface. Backups ran perfectly under XP. But after the upgrade, Windows 7 had no clue about the external drive. Period. Galaxy has no Windows 7 drivers because the drivers bundled with Vista worked fine and they assumed it'd run fine under Windows 7. WRONG-O, guys!

So now I have a smoothly upgraded Windows 7 PC with NO user data, no easy way to get it back, and an invisible external drive.

Be aware of this in upgrading - just because external storage works in XP or Vista is NO guarantee that the driver is present in Windows 7!

I will have to pull the raw drive out of the enclosure to free it from the useless Galaxy circuitry and see if I can set up the interface so that the drive is visible in Windows 7. Haven't pulled the E520 case apart yet to see what's available. The Dell specs are vague on the exact count of IDE interfaces.

Re: Will Windows 7 work on my E520?

Many thanks to all of you who have responded.

I decided last night to return my unopened Windows 7 update to Best buy. However, based on the replies, I'm reconsidering the decision today. I'm very resentful that I need to pay lots of $ to basically re-install and re-configure a deficient product.

Here's a tip that I fortuitously followed and which saved me a lot of effort.

Before I lost the ability to boot Vista, (BTW, the problem was caused when I tried to install Vista SP2. My system ran into a endless loop of "Boot-Restore-Repeat"), I had downloaded a free trial version of Acronis True Image Home 2010. It's a wonderful program, and I'll certainly purchase it outright. I had just completed an Acronis System Backup 2 hours before I tried to download and install SP2.

To restore from the backup, I bought a new internal drive (so that I would not further corrupt the drive that lost it's ability to Boot up Vista) and connected the cables. I booted from the CDRom that I had created using Acronis before I commenced the backup. This was a pretty high-risk method of testing the ability of Acronis to restore from the back-up.

It wll working perfectly. The Restoration took two hours of processing time while I went for a bike ride. When I return, my dear ol' system was running perfectly on the new drive. All of my settings, configurations, programs, and data were virtually undisturbed.

I recommend that anyone thinking about updating Vista or converting to Windows 7 should first give Acronis a trial evaluation.

Re: Will Windows 7 work on my E520?

Oooops! SUCCESS!

My apologies to Galaxy Metal Gear. Their enclosure works just fine. What doesn't work is one of the USB ports on the E520 backplane. I plugged the enclosure into a USB port on my Dell display and Windows 7 found it instantly, installed a driver for exactly the right Seagate drive, and I am now off to the races after I shoot an e-mail to Galaxy support to make amends. THE GALAXY METAL GEAR BOX ROCKS in Windows 7! And the E520 works beautifully with Windows 7.